Fourteen
years ago on this day, the Singapore-flagged chemical tanker ‘Bow Mariner’ sank
off Virginia after a fire broke out while its crew was engaged in cleaning
residual from cargo tank, resulting in the death of 21 people, total loss of
the ship, as well as significant marine pollution. The accident is defined as a
very serious casualty and one of worst ever deep-sea chemical tanker disasters
in terms of loss of life.
At 1805 on Saturday, 28 February
2004, the Odfjell-owned ‘Bow Mariner’ was en route from New York to Texas, with
a cargo of 11,570 tons of industrial ethanol, when it caught fire and exploded,
while the crew was engaged in cleaning residual Methyl Tert Butyl Ether (MTBE)
from cargo tank number eight starboard. The fire was followed by two
significant explosions that occurred less than two minutes apart, at 1806 and
at 1808. The explosions caused catastrophic structural damage and led to
immediate flooding. The ship sank by the bow at 19.37, one hour and 32 minutes
after the first explosion, about 45 nm east of Virginia. The Bow Mariner
spilled about 3,188,711 gallons of ethyl alcohol, 192,904 gallons of HFO,
48,266 gallons of LFO, and an unknown quantity of slops in US waters.
Fatalities
Of the 27 crew onboard:
- Six abandoned the ship and were able to make
it to an inflatable life raft and were rescued by the USCG.
- Three were found dead: An unknown number of
other crew members abandoned the ship to the water, one of whom were
recovered deceased and two of whom were recovered alive by USCG and good
Samaritan vessels, but died before reaching to hospital.
- 18 crew remain missing and are presumed dead.
USCG
Investigation
The explosion was caused by the
ignition of a fuel/air mixture, either on deck or in the cargo tanks, that was
within its flammable units, leading to a fire on deck. However, the ignition
source could not be determined. Possible sources of ignition included
electrostatic discharge, mechanical sparks or electrical sources, while less possible
sources include cell phones, sabotage, smoking.
In its investigation report, the US
Coast Guard has laid particular emphasis on the Master's order to open for
cleaning the lids of 22 tanks that had been carrying MTBE, which caused
flammable vapors heavier than air to accumulate on deck and diluted the
fuel-rich atmosphere in the cargo tanks with oxygen, bringing them to flammable
range. This action was “breach of normal safe practices for a tank ship and
defies explanation or excuse,” USCG noted.
Contributing to the casualty was
failure of the operator and the senior officers of the ship to properly
implement the company’s Safety, Quality and Environmental Protection Management
System (SQEMS). This is the first time in history that noncompliance and failure
of Operator and crew to properly implement SQEMS has been recorded as a
contributing cause to an accident.
Investigators also noted the crew was
inefficiently unprepared for an emergency, because fire and boat drills were
rarely performed.
Another significant issue was the
lack of immersion suits that also contributed to loss of life, as there was
sufficient time for survivors of the explosion to don immersion suits before
entering the water, had there existed any.
USCG
recommendations
On the aftermath of the casualty, the
USCG recommended the manager company to review their internal policies and
procedures in the workforce interaction and cooperation.
The USCG also proposed IMO,
INTERTANKO and ICS to jointly examine the causes of all tank vessels explosions
involving tank cleaning in the previous five years.
It also advised Commandant to send a
message to all marine safety field units emphasizing the importance of randomly
verifying a tank vessel’s compliance with SMS for tank cleaning, confined space
entry and tests and inspections of equipment.
Lessons to be learned
This maritime casualty, along with
many others, underlines the disaster that can be provoked by the lack of simple
compliance with procedures:
The importance of implementing the SQEMS:
The cargo tanks were not inerted during the discharge of MTBE in New York and
they were not required to by the US law, because the ship was built before
1986. If simply the tanks had remained closed, the explosion would not have
occurred.
The opening of the 22 cargo tanks
that had previously held MTBE was a major safety violation by the Captain,
defying any explanation, according to the USCG. This caused flammable vapors
heavier than air to accumulate on deck and diluted the fuel-rich atmosphere in
the cargo tanks with oxygen, bringing them to flammable range.
Even more, the accident highlights
the need to follow procedures in an emergency: The insufficient emergency response, the lack of
immersion suits onboard, and the Captain leaving the ship without distress
calls and without conducting a muster for the injured crew, as well as without
attempting to launch primary lifesaving appliances were a deadly mix for the
aftermath of the explosion.
The USCG report notes that this
improper preparedness was resulted from insufficient
training, as the Captain did not conduct
regular boat drills: In this casualty, the officer on watch failed to sound the
general alarm and to send a distress signal, while there had been panic at the
time, with no crewman reported to their muster stations with the equipment they
had to bring and with no one knowing what to do.
As such, concerns on procedural
compliance are further extended to concerns of effective leadership: The
explosion and sinking of Bow Mariner leaves the shipping community with
thoughts regarding hierarchy and dysfunctional leadership aboard ships and
behavior culture.
Please see the following you-tube video,
Δεν υπάρχουν σχόλια:
Δημοσίευση σχολίου